Thursday, November 13, 2014

In the
Chennai Central Station, as we wait for boarding a train, one could see a small
group of employees walking – checking every compartment’s coupling. One would also have observed some sitting at
the entrance of the platforms, looking at the wheels …..

A train wheel
is specially designed for use on rail
tracks. A rolling component is typically pressed onto an axle and mounted
directly on a rail car or locomotive. The
train wheels are made of steel unlike that of automobiles - trains weigh thousands of times more than a
car, the rolling resistance is a huge factor in determining how much force it
takes to pull the train.

There are
many types of passenger trains in India – local EMUs, passenger trains, Mails,
Super fast, Express, Shatabdi, Rajdhani …. Shatabdi Expresses connect major
metro cities with important places of tourism, pilgrimage and business. Most of the Shatabdi Express are day-trains. They are among the fastest trains in India and
considered prestigious too. The word
"Shatabdi" means centenary in Sanskrit, Hindi and several Indian
languages. The first Shatabdi train was started in 1988 to commemorate the
centenary of Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru's Birthday (the First Prime Minister of
India) by Madhav Rao Scindia and was operated from New Delhi to Jhansi, later
extended to Bhopal. It is now known as the Bhopal Shatabdi Express.

Among some of
the occupations connected with Indian Railways are : Brakeman – a worker whose job
was to assist the braking of a train by applying brakes on individual wagons.
The advent of through brakes on trains made this role redundant, although the
name lives on. A pointsman’s job is to operate
various railway switches or points on a railroad. A motorman is the title for a person who
operates an electrified trolley car, tram, light rail, or rapid transit train. The
operator of an electric locomotive or an electric multiple unit train on a
commuter or mainline railroad is typically called an engineer or driver. For
the safety of train movement, there is signalling (receiving / relaying of
communications); Coupling or uncoupling rolling stock; maintaining, repairing,
modifying, monitoring, inspecting or testing and more…

There have been accidents
involving loss of lives – Daily Mail reports of an incident of miraculous
escape for Shatabdi Express passengers as the super-fast train ran at 110km per hour with a broken wheel

The report states that - Passengers
aboard the Ajmer bound Shatabdi Express from New Delhi had a lucky escape on
Monday after the super-fast train chugged on nearly eight kilometres at 110km
per hour on a broken wheel. The 300-odd passengers on board the train included
foreign tourists. The broken wheel was brought to the notice of a railway
official at Bobas railway station, around 40km from Jaipur, by gateman Kaluram
when he saw smoke rising and heard an awkward sound coming from the train. It states that the Express train had run for
nearly 8km on a broken wheel before the problem was noticed.

When the train was crossing
Bobas at around 11.35am, he saw the smoke and heard a sound, realising that
something was wrong in its running. He immediately reported it to assistant
station master Ramavtar. However, before Ramavtar could grasp the situation and
do something, the train crossed the station. He immediately informed railway
superintendent Kaluram Meena at the next station, Asalpur-Jobner, who stopped
the train. Engineers and other officials then reached the spot to trace the
fault. A safety check-up revealed that half a wheel attached to its generator
car van was broken. The damaged wheel
was replaced at Asalpur-Jobner before the train was allowed to move forward. The train, however, had to be halted for about
two hours while the repair was carried out.

Sources said that it is
customary to put the wheels through an ultrasonic check that can detect even a
minor crack. Moreover, an intensive check of the Shatabdi Express is carried
out in Delhi before its departure.